


a possibility

by Starling (StarDandere)



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games), Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, everyone else from VLR, lack of quark constantly being radical-6'ed up because he deserves screentime, pov primarily quark but likely to shift away on occasion, probably will be a collection of snippets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-08 01:17:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11635929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarDandere/pseuds/Starling
Summary: Quark wakes up in an elevator. In most histories, this is where he would be greeted by a rather obnoxious man in a top hat. This history is not one of them.





	1. Jumpstart

The first thing his mind became aware of was that his back hurt. The bed under him was harder than his was, and as he strained his eyes open he realized it wasn’t a bed at all. It was a cold, concrete floor. He couldn’t remember very much about how he fell asleep. He rolled over and pulled himself to his knees, looking around the room. His hat was on the floor next to him, and he happily put it back on. A glance around the room revealed it to be a metal box. For a moment, he thought he was alone, but then his eyes fell on someone. An old woman, probably around Grandpa’s age, had been patiently standing just outside of his peripheral vision as he had sat up. If he had been more alert, he might’ve jumped in surprise.

 

Instead, he smiled at her, slightly foggy mind overriding any suspicion Grandpa would want him to have. “Hi! Where are we?”

She returned his smile, hers gentle and warm. “I don’t know.” She gestured to the side, to some weird panel and what looked like the exit. “Perhaps an elevator?”

“Oh!” Quark sort of knew what that was. There weren’t many around anymore, but Grandpa said they were boxes that could move up and down instead of taking the stairs. Sometimes they would pull parts out of broken ones, so now that the old woman pointed it out he recognized it. “You’re right! Why are we in here though?”

 

“I wonder.” That was all she was able to say, before a monitor on the panel she pointed out suddenly lit up, showing some sort of rabbit thing. It introduced itself as Zero III, explaining that they were going to play some “ambidex edition nonary game” or something. He wasn’t paying too much attention as he had just noticed a cool watch on his wrist.

“... this elevator you’re in? It’s gonna fall in a few minutes. Waaaaaaay down. So you better get moving!” The monitor clicked off. Having only caught the end of that, Quark suddenly felt nervous. Grandpa didn’t say that their trip was going to involve falling elevators.

“W-What should we do?” He looked to the woman for guidance, and she looked around the room.

“Well, it looks like a puzzle. How about you look for something to help us solve it?”

He wasn’t the best at puzzles, but Grandpa had made some for him in the past. Once, he had found an intact Sudoku book and taught Quark how to solve them. Nothing in the room looked like that, but Grandpa said puzzles were just like scavenging: you just had to find the useful parts amidst the junk.

 

The first thing that looked interesting was a red box in the corner. Good stuff was often hidden away, so that was probably important. Quark approached it and examined the image drawn on it. This needed  _ something _ , but he wasn’t sure what the picture was of exactly.

“That is the container to this fire extinguisher, isn’t it.” The old woman knelt down next to him holding a red thing, which was what the picture was of. He looked back at the box, then at the poster above the box that had “fire extinguisher” written on it. The poster said to pull the circle part out of the top, so he did that when she handed it to him.

“Look! It’s a key! It goes in here, right?” He pointed at the box, and at her approving nod he unlocked it.

 

Inside was a set of what he assumed to be fancy screwdriver heads, though their bases were nowhere to be seen. They wouldn't be much use like this.

Behind him, the old woman rose and pressed some buttons on the side walls. Questioning it got his gaze directed towards a poster in the room that was the puzzle’s guide. It was a funny picture with babies and old people that made Quark smile in amusement, before it fell into a nervous thin line as he fiddled with the hem of his shirt, wondering if Grandpa was okay.

 

“Are you alright?” The woman laid a hand on his shoulder, pulling him from his thoughts.

“O-Oh, yes! I’m just, um, wondering about these.” He wasn’t supposed to lie, but he didn’t want to worry a stranger over his problems. He held up the box of screwdriver heads.

“Hm...” She looked around the room, until her eyes fell on the panel again. “Look, those screws match the shapes. They’re all different colors.”

The colors looked familiar, and he gasped as he realized the solution. Turning to the wall at his right, he pulled at the colored handle on the end of the steel bar. It came off as he expected, and he grinned up at the woman. “Look, it’s one of the handles! Now we can use the heads on the screws!”

 

They combined the screwdrivers and took off the screws, before finally - with praise from her and excitement from him - they were able to pull off the vent to reveal an open space with some sort of box. It had clear glass on the front, showing off moving parts that shifted as he tilted it. It was a pretty easy puzzle, solved with relatively minimal direction from the woman. Once the green piece finally reached its place, Quark heard a small click from the box and looked down to see a memory card. He saw these a lot when he was scavenging for stuff so he knew they were useful. He looked up, ready to boast his finding, when his eyes landed on the rows of buttons on the upper half of the panel.

 

There was a cute square sticker of a bunny, reminding Quark both of the rabbit that had appeared on the screen and of the fact that they needed to hurry. Without thinking, he started to press the buttons at random, starting from the bottom up. He got lucky; within two presses his finger landed on the 0 button and again heard a small click.

“Another card. Good job,” The woman pulled it from its slot, handing it down to him. “Would you like to do the honors?” Quark nodded and rushed over to put them in, noting with a confused frown that there were three slots.

 

Still, the screen glowed white then green as he put the cards in, the image settling into a 3-by-3 grid with symbols. He looked to the woman for guidance. She crossed the room to join him, examining the screen and then its surroundings.

“Down there, isn’t there a similar grid on that safe?”

There was! Again realizing what that meant, he dropped down and put in the password he had gotten, glancing up to make sure he got it right. When he was sure he had, he pressed the triangle button, and it opened! Almost greedily he snatched up the contents, a key, and rushed over to the only lock in the room left to open.

 

And then he stopped short.

 

“Oh.” He turned to the woman. “You know, we’ve done this entire puzzle together and I never even introduced myself!” He held his hand out like all of the cool characters in the films did when they were meeting someone. “I’m Quark!”

She smiled and accepted his handshake. “It’s very nice to meet you, Quark. You may call me Murasaki.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Murasaki: I, as did many others, played the English version. I personally think that it makes more sense for all three games to be in English, so "June" would've been the codename used in 999, leaving this one open for use here. (However I do really appreciate the deeper layers of depth in her Japanese codename)


	2. Organization

They got out with surprisingly little difficulty. Quark had been worried that Murasaki might not be able to get out, since he wasn’t strong enough to lift her, but with a little help from the panel they had put the cards into she managed to pull herself up onto the roof of the elevator. And just in time too, as a shout filled the room they found themselves in.

“Quark!” It was a voice he would recognize anywhere, and his heart swelled with relief.

“Grandpa!” Quark approached the edge of the roof and watched as he ran over, almost ready to jump into his arms if it weren’t for the hand that fell on his shoulder and its owner warning him against it.

 

Grandpa slowed as he drew closer, his attention suddenly less focused on Quark. That didn’t stop him from helping the two down, but his sudden shell-shocked appearance concerned Quark. He was looking at the old woman... Oh! Was he supposed to introduce her?

He quickly tugged on his pant leg. “Grandpa, this is Miss Murasaki! She helped me get out of the elevator!”

He didn’t respond for a long moment, and she didn’t say anything in response either. Finally, he licked his lips, turning his gaze to the wall. “Murasaki, huh? It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too.” There was something in her soft voice and eyes just then that seemed... sad. Quark wasn’t sure why. “Your boy is very clever. He solved a lot of it on his own.”

 

All thoughts were forgotten as he flushed in embarrassment. “Oh, it was nothing.” He readjusted his hat and took a look around the room. It was a weirdly open room, with the row of elevators behind them and a large... door? with a red 9 painted on it. Two strangers stood near it, watching them from afar. He waved at them, and one of them waved back.

“Shall we join the others?” Murasaki posed, bringing her hands together in her lap. It was then he noticed the glint of jewelry on her finger. “Perhaps they will have a better understanding of what is going on.”

Grandpa snorted. He did that when he found something to be bad and it made Quark frown. “Yeah. Of course.”

 

He placed a hand on Quark’s shoulder in a protective grip and guided him towards the two women by the door. The one that waved at him smiled as they came back, but it was laced with nervousness.

“So that makes five of us so far.” The other woman spoke first, her voice neutral but powerful. She looked like someone straight out of Grandpa’s posters. “I’m guessing you’re clueless as well?”

“Yeah,” Quark sighed. “What is this?” There was a switch by the door. He wanted to try flipping it but his shoulder was still being held tightly.

“We’re not sure. Luna and I have already tried the lever multiple times but no luck.” The first woman nodded in agreement. She must be Luna.

“Hmph.” Grandpa released him and crossed his arms. “Not much else we can do but wait.”

 

They didn’t have to wait long. A minute passed as they examined the door further, until the tell-tale sound of another metal hatch opening rang out. Everyone watched as a white-haired girl and a man probably around Grandpa’s age made their way onto the roof, hopped down, and ran over. Quark prepared to greet them, but stopped short as his attention was drawn to the old man’s face. He had a cool robot eye! He'd never seen something like that and almost blurted out his astonishment, before he remembered that commenting on prosthetics was rude, probably. The fact that no one else brought it up made him certain that he made the right choice.

 

The duo introduced themselves as Sigma and Phi, and though they claimed not to know each other they had a good flow in their back-and-forth. The woman who had stood next to Luna was Alice, and that made seven of them. They discussed their situation and the bracelets, before attention finally fell on the last elevator. Though it wouldn't plunge into the abyss (hopefully), it was concerning that whoever was within wasn't out yet.

 

A holographic projection flickered on behind them. The rabbit from before appeared, looking bored. It sighed dramatically. “Waiting is sooooooo boring, isn't it? Guess that's what hoppens when people don't wake up on time like they're supposed to.” It pouted.

Sigma was the first to respond. “So you're saying they're still asleep?”

“The smarter half, yes.” It giggled. “Juuuust kidding. I’m making him wait until his partner wakes up.” It paused. “Which is right now, finally.” It rolled it eyes and sat down in its holographic space. Everyone turned away; Quark because he felt a bit creeped out by it.

 

Within a few minutes, the last hatch opened and they could faintly hear voices that appeared to be arguing. With Alice’s help, Phi got onto the roof to see inside and help them out. The first person she pulled out was a man in a top hat, who was all too eager to separate himself from Phi as soon as he could and jump down to the rest of them. As he introduced himself as Dio, his partner was pulled out, a girl with pink hair and only slightly more clothing than Alice. Since she cried out the name “Clover” at the newly revealed, Quark guessed they knew each other and were matching on purpose or something.

 

“What the hell’s going on?” Dio began once the two girls were off the roof, sizing the rest of the group up before noticing Zero III on the other side of the warehouse. His face twisted into a scowl.  _“You!”_   He lunged towards the projection, only to be pulled back by Sigma.

“It’s just a projection; there’s no point. Let’s just listen to what he has to say.”

Phi voiced her agreement and the rest of the group followed, collectively inching towards the screen. Quark stayed between the two adults he trusted the most in the room, his grandpa and Murasaki. He wanted to hold Grandpa’s hand for comfort, but he had his hands clenched into tight fists. He didn’t look good, which worried Quark. He turned to Murasaki, but her gaze was distant. His chest constricted painfully as he felt alone all of the sudden.

 

Zero’s prattling on didn’t help his fear, and he settled for fidgeting with the bracelet around his wrist. He was beginning to have mixed feelings about the moon. It was cool and exciting, but this game wasn't. There were so many complicated rules involving mixing colors and countdowns and pairing up that his head felt like it was beginning to spin. It was hard to focus, especially once the arguing began as the Chromatic Doors opened.

 

He held his head between his hands, gripping onto the sides of his hat for comfort. His unease must have been clear, as Luna stepped towards him and knelt down so her voice wasn't drowned out by the others.

“Quark, are you alright?”

He nodded, trying to muster up a reassuring smile for her. She didn't look convinced.

“Is there a door you want to go through? I can ask them for you if you want.”

 

He wasn't sure. What were his options? Phi had told them, but he was still confused. Magenta, yellow, and cyan. One of them would take him with Grandpa, the others with either... Alice or Luna, right? He looked to the other adults for guidance, but no one except Luna paid him any attention. His opinion wasn't going to be heard without her help.

 

He told her his answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm open to suggestions of which way to go first, but if not then I'll head off down the road that motivation takes me


	3. Tension

“Cyan.” Looking back, it was an easy choice. It reminded him of Grandpa’s shirt, so he had a good feeling about it. Luna’s smile in response reaffirmed his decision, and she rose to rejoin the others. The soft male voice that had alerted them of the doors opening announced 30 seconds left as she placed a hand on Sigma’s arm to draw his attention. She said something Quark couldn’t hear, before Sigma’s voice cut above the argument.

“Phi, magenta!” They rushed for the door with Luna, and no one moved to stop them. It was obvious why once Clover cheered and led Alice towards the yellow door, Dio mumbling curses as he followed, leaving Grandpa as the last solo. Quark couldn’t smother the giddy feeling of choosing right as he enthusiastically pulled his two partners into the cyan door.

 

The secondary door opened to a hallway with four other doors. He approached the nearest one and turned the wheel-like knob in the center. It was stiff and unmoving in his hands. Was it locked? He looked over to his grandpa, who appeared to be pointedly looking at the wall. There was nothing where his gaze was fixated, and Quark frowned.

“Grandpa, are you feeling okay?” He placed a hand on his forearm, which resulted in him flinching.

“H-Huh? Oh, yeah.” He sighed. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s just focus on finding those key cards.” He opened the door Quark had tried and stumbled inside. He moved to follow him, but Murasaki stopped him with a gentle touch.

“Let me speak with him.” She led him to the two doors further down and opened them, before returning and entering the first room with Grandpa. She closed the door behind them, nullifying Quark’s urge to peek in.

 

He glanced between the two open doors. He didn’t know where to start. So, the next few minutes were spent aimlessly poking around the rooms, uncovering not much aside from some weird pieces of metal and a poster Grandpa was sure to like. The latter looked a bit off to him, however he couldn’t figure out why. And it was only with some toying around with the former in his hands that he found that one part fit inside the other. It was a key! ... That he didn’t know where to use. This was harder than the first one.

 

He wandered back into the hallway, intending to check the room across the hall again, when he noticed a chain on the only unchecked door. He got closer to examine it, but paused as he started to hear a voice. Grandpa was talking very loudly, but as he pressed his ear to the door he realized it was all in Japanese. He had tried to teach Quark some over the years, but since their neighborhood teacher spoke English there wasn’t much usage for it, and so he only knew some common words and phrases. Nothing Grandpa was saying was familiar nor was it even slow enough for him to try to untangle meaning from. Quark could only tell that he sounded frustrated.

 

He must’ve caught the tailend of their conversation, as the room fell silent seconds after Quark pressed his ear up against the door to listen in. After a long pause, Murasaki responded - again in Japanese, and almost too quiet for Quark to make out. But as her voice was calmer and slower, he was able to make out some of what she was saying. She was... apologizing for something? Maybe? Did she say something that made Grandpa upset? Quark was confused and worried.

Then, a string of words later, he heard Grandpa say his name. A few times, actually. His tone had changed to something softer, something sadder. His heart throbbed just listening. He backed away, suddenly not liking his own eavesdropping.

 

Only seconds after he had done so and turned away, however, the door opened behind him. Quark tensed, hoping it wasn’t obvious what he had just been doing.

“Quark.” Grandpa pushed past Murasaki, who had been the one to open the door. “What are you doing?”

“Um...” He wanted to avoid admitting guilt, but Grandpa was smart. “I was trying to find where this key went when I heard you arguing.” Quark sheepishly turned said key over in his hands. “Is everything okay?”

Some of the tension in Grandpa’s wrinkled face smoothed out. “Yes, well, as good as things can be right now I suppose. It’s just stress, don’t worry.” He patted Quark’s shoulder. “Now, let’s see that key.”

 

Grandpa used the key to unlock the room across the hall, and the two of them entered while Murasaki went to the ones Quark had previously been in. He couldn’t tell how she was feeling from her expression, or rather lack thereof. He supposed she was probably upset that Grandpa had yelled at her. He knew how that felt. He hoped they made up soon; Quark thought Murasaki seemed very nice, and Grandpa _was_ a bit lonely sometimes, even if he said he was good with just Quark.

 

The opening of the locker and rustling of aluminum foil drew him out of his thoughts. Grandpa was squinting at the reflective material, which had a bunch of weird symbols and lines drawn on it. It was very long, so long Grandpa had to spread it out on the floor so they could see it all at once. It was separated into four parts by three lines. As Quark remembered seeing similar symbols in the two rooms he explored, Grandpa pulled down the bed in the wall.

“Hm, this one too...” He mumbled to himself, and Quark looked over to see what he meant. There was a patch missing from the outline’s right arm. It was different from the rooms he had explored; the right knee and left wrist had been missing from the other beds. He quickly informed his grandpa of what he had seen, both the beds and the symbols on the walls, and received a proud smile and squeeze on the shoulder in response.

 

After Grandpa took a box cutter to the foil, they slid it into the panel the table below the symbols had, swapping them out until the reflection made the word LOCKER appear on it. Grandpa just grunted and scratched his head at that. Quark was equally confused.

The hint didn’t become clear until they had put the foil into room 1 - which was also confusing - and room 2. In room 2, they were given a password, which Quark eagerly put into the locker as the message in room 3 suggested. It opened to show a cassette tape, a relic as Grandpa informed him once but a very useful thing regardless. Quark gave it to him to hold on to.

 

Quark was the first to enter room 4, Grandpa suddenly lagging behind. The cause was obviously Murasaki, Quark knew that much. She herself wasn’t looking much happier; a heavy look of disappointment was set into her face as she methodically scratched at the poster he had found earlier with a coin. He recognized her expression because it reminded Quark of how his teacher looked when he forgot his homework too many times in a row.

 

So, he attempted to lighten the mood in hopes of repairing the relationship between his partner and his grandpa. “Look Grandpa! This poster looks like the ones you’ve got back home!” He expected to get a laugh and agreement out of that.

That was not what he got. Instead, Grandpa froze in the doorway, his entire body rigid as he looked to what Quark was pointing to. After a few long second, he eventually mumbled an “o-oh yeah” before stumbling over to the table to put the foil in place. Murasaki gave him a look as she dusted the poster off with a quick brush of her hand.

 

The awkward atmosphere in the room flipped to tension when Grandpa approached the locker. The combination was on the foil he placed down, but the locker was already open. Quark wasn’t sure what that meant, but since Grandpa spun to give Murasaki a suspicious glare he figured it wasn’t good that she had opened it without any hints. He looked like he was going to get upset and yell again, but he didn’t. Or rather, Murasaki didn’t give him the opportunity, as she walked out of the room. Grandpa grumbled at that, but when he left after her it wasn’t a chase; he went into room 3 while she went into 1. Back where he started, Quark stood between the two room in the back, now feeling quite unhappy. He just wanted to go with his grandpa, but instead he was just causing problems for him yet again.

 

Since Grandpa was unresponsive to his attempts to fix the situation, Quark went after Murasaki instead. The room was the same as it had been before, except she had picked up the book Grandpa had thrown on the bed and placed it on top of the safe. Quark hadn’t paid much attention to it before, but for some reason he felt drawn to it. That led to him holding the book in front of Murasaki, as if he were a little kid asking for a bedtime story. Not that he was a little kid; he was 10, perfectly grown up and ready to read this heavy textbook on his own, thank you very much.

 

Murasaki, who had been messing with the phone, quirked a smile at him when she noticed him lingering below her. “Schrödinger’s Cat: have you heard of it, Quark?”

He hadn’t. “No, but it purrrrobably isn’t going to give us any hints, right?” The second part flowed out of his mouth subconsciously; was the cat pun intentional? He wasn’t quite sure. It made the smile on her face a little more genuine though, so he was happy about that.

“Likely not. If you are interested, however, I would be happy to tell you about it at some point in the future.”

 

Quark gave her a grin. “Yeah, I’d like that a lot.”


	4. Shock

Between them finishing the room and meeting up with the others, Grandpa and Murasaki seemed to have silently reached some mutual understanding, and the tense atmosphere between them vanished as if it hadn’t been there in the first place. Quark wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not, but he was relieved nonetheless. Even as Phi ushered them all into the elevator at the end of the hall, the mood was relatively calm within the group. Though Quark had begun to wonder if his solo choice had been a mistake, the others seemed more than happy with theirs, Dio aside. But he probably wouldn’t have been happy no matter the outcome so Quark ignored that.

 

After their descent in the elevator, the doors opened directly into a somewhat circular room. Its most prominent feature was immediately obvious to the group; there were three Chromatic Doors, just like upstairs in the warehouse. Green, blue, and red, matching their bracelets. However, with no way to open it they soon gave up and returned to the first floor. With nowhere to go but the warehouse, the group piled into the lounge, as Sigma introduced. This had been the room he searched with Luna and Phi.

 

The first thing his eyes were drawn to was the bar and the three drinks lined up on it. Behind it was a disorganized shelf of alcohol, and Quark was quick to pull his grandpa over to it.

“Look Grandpa, it’s some of your favorite scotch!”

Grandpa’s eyes lit up, and though he rejected drinking any he looked much happier. As the others started to file out of the lounge to continue on, he gave Quark’s back a pat in that direction. “Let’s go buddy. Soon as we get out of here I can drink all the scotch I want. And _you_ ,” he paused, looking down with a grin, “can drink all the root beer floats you can stomach.”

His heart stopped in his chest. “What?! You’re gonna get me a root beer float?!” He couldn’t believe it. The fact that he had even been able to get one at all was a miracle in itself, but to learn he might get another? It just didn’t sound real.

 

Even the reassurance that it was fine, that Grandpa had the money from a good salvage didn’t calm his racing heart. The excitement that was building didn’t decrease even as Zero III popped up again, giving them more instructions and urging them to enter the AB rooms using the key cards they found in their safes. With little reason to refuse, Quark and Murasaki soon found themselves standing in front of the third room from the right, opening it. They had only just gotten inside when a shout echoed through the warehouse and into their AB room.

 

“What the- There’s someone in here!” It was Sigma’s voice. Quark, unable to contain his curiosity, darted back out and toward the room he had seen Phi and Sigma lingering in front of. Grandpa and Alice beat him there, blocking his view as they and the room’s pair stood in the entryway. At least, until Sigma stepped forward.

Inside the room, there was some sort of humanoid robot-armor looking thing. Quark couldn’t say he would think “that’s a person” when he looked at it, but at the same time he knew it had to be one. Or was one, at least; Sigma was shaking the shoulders but it wasn’t responding, and Quark could see the shimmer of blood coating the area around the suit’s neck.

 

At that moment, everything seemed to collapse around him. Dread filled his senses and he pulled back from the room, wildly looking around for some sort of comfort. His eyes landed on Murasaki first, who had been standing a short distance behind him, and he practically ran to her side. His mind was too panicked to even question why he hadn’t run to his grandpa, but he later realized it wouldn’t have mattered; Grandpa had reacted in a similar manner, and though he didn’t physically move over to join him and Murasaki his eyes were locked onto them - or maybe just her - in pure shock.

 

“The hell is that?!” Dio was the first to break the silence, having no problems voicing his thoughts. The others around him murmured similar sentiments about the thing in front of them.

Sigma was the one to answer them. “It’s somebody in a suit, I think. They’re... I think they’re dead.” His voice wavered, clearly affected by the sudden twist.

“How can you tell?” Phi asked, entering the room and kneeling down with her partner. She poked and prodded at the suit as Sigma responded with uncertainty. Finally, she sighed. “I can’t find a good place to check for a pulse. Let’s take him to the infirmary; maybe they’ll have something we can use to determine if he’s alive or not.”

The ability Phi had to say those morbid things with a straight face both frightened and calmed Quark. Though she wasn't physically strong, as she didn't join the others in trying to lift the suit to move it, she had an aura of confidence and power that put Quark at ease.

 

It ended up taking Sigma, Dio, Grandpa, Alice, _and_ Clover to just lift the suit. For a moment Quark was worried the two older men would hurt themselves trying to help, but Sigma didn’t seemed concerned and he knew Grandpa would be careful. Getting it through the yellow door was even harder; the door was wide, but not enough for a width of three people. It took a lot of maneuvering and cursing to finally get it into the infirmary and onto the first bed they found.

Upon entering, Luna had been drawn to the machine by the bed, recognizing it as a medical scanner and offering to try scanning the suit. Apparently, she was a doctor, which Quark found pretty cool. The others stepped aside to let her access the machine, and she began the scan.

 

It took only a few minutes to get results. He couldn't see the screen, since Phi had ushered him to the back of the group away from the bed, but Sigma read what it said out loud for everyone to hear. Male, age 18-25, deceased by exsanguination (whatever that was), and a bunch of descriptions about the wound that even Sigma stumbled in reading out. The terminology was all too complex for Quark to understand.

“Okay,” Sigma sighed as he finished. It was a long moment before he turned to face the others, the movement almost deliberately slow. His gaze was distant and looked far above their heads.

 

“So, he was stabbed in the neck?” Alice prompted to pull Sigma back. Quark shuffled nervously at her blunt question, but Sigma himself didn’t react.

“It appears so, yes,” Luna answered instead, twisting her hands nervously, “It's always possible that all the metal skewed the ADAM’s results, but...” She looked away, her expression pained. A silence fell over the room again as the existence of a corpse in the room settled on them all.

 

“This body was in the leftmost AB room, correct?” Murasaki asked, speaking for the first time since they found the body.

Phi followed up her question with what could almost be called an accusation. “That was the room Dio and Clover were in.”

“Hey, wait!” Of course, Dio was quick to become defensive. “This stupid thing sure as hell wasn't anywhere in there when we woke up!”

“T-That’s right!”

“And we’re supposed to just take your word on it?” Phi raised a brow, crossing her arms.

 

Alice took insult to that, and as she defended Clover the argument grew louder. First the Chromatic doors, then in the crew quarters, now this; Quark could tell that the level of distrust in the group was high. He didn't understand why, because aside from the body with no evidence to point to the killer, everyone should've been getting along, right?

 

When an announcement came over the intercom to tell them they had 10 minutes remaining to vote, Sigma finally tired of the circular yelling. “Shut up!” The room feel silent at his roar, waiting for him to continue. “We’ll figure this out later. Right now, we need to go back to the AB rooms.”

“Who cares about the game?!” Grandpa shouted in response, causing Quark and some of the others to flinch back in surprise. To them, he must've seemed angry, but Quark could tell he was afraid and that made Quark afraid too.

“Tenmyouji.” Murasaki placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him. He moved to shove it off, but stopped mid-motion and sighed, begrudgingly agreeing to returning to the warehouse. The rest of the group silently complied and they headed out of the infirmary, abandoning the mystery of the armored corpse.

 

Back in the warehouse, Quark was relieved when Sigma and Phi went back to the room they found the body in; he was worried that they would avoid it and that he might have to go in there if he and Murasaki weren’t fast enough to also avoid it. Everyone seemed content with the rooms they originally chose, however, so they ended up back where they started. With nothing to distract them any longer, Quark approached the panel in the back of the room, drawn in by the dim light it emitted. He barely read what it said before he was compelled to push the big START in the center of the screen. The door closed immediately after he had done so, and the monitor above the elevator buttons flickered on to show Zero III.

 

“Hooray! Looks like everybunny’s finally here! I've been waiting!” He paused, as if waiting for one of them to respond. When neither of them did, he sighed. “Not going to demand answers like the others? That's fine by me; B.O.’s yelling enough for all 9 of you. Not that you can hear, since these rooms are completely soundproof, but... For real B.O., I need you to shut up. There isn't much time. I've gotta hurry and and explain all this stuff or the game’ll end before I'm done!”

The rules of the game he went onto explain were a lot easier for Quark to understand than all the Chromatic door ones were. The panel he had touched earlier now displayed two buttons: Ally and Betray. Picking one would alter the points on their bracelet: +2 for mutual allying with their opponent, Grandpa, +3 to them if they betrayed and he allied, though at the cost of him losing 2 points, and no points to anyone if they both betrayed. Quark could tell the best option was obviously ally before Zero III even finished.

 

And boy, did it take him forever to finish. Quark almost wanted to ignore the rest and press ally already out of boredom, but he didn’t want to miss anything potentially important so he waited.

“One minute remains until Ambidex Game polling closes.” The announcer finally brought Zero’s speech to an end, leaving them to put in their vote. Quark approached the panel and reached out to press ally...

 

Just as Murasaki’s hand descended on the panel.

 

* * *

 

 **Ally** or **Betray**  

 


End file.
